Le Monde diplomatique - English edition, August 2020

/08

  • Les #populistes américains contre le lobby des médecins, par Thomas Frank (Le Monde diplomatique, août 2020)
    https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2020/08/FRANK/62105

    L’incurie des présidents Donald Trump et Jair Bolsonaro face à la crise sanitaire a conforté l’idée que les « populistes » seraient hostiles à la #science, médicale en particulier. L’histoire des #États-Unis et du #Canada rappelle le contraire : les populistes se sont battus pour démocratiser le #savoir et la #santé pendant que la corporation des #médecins s’employait à les réserver aux riches.

    It’s the healthcare system, stupid, by Thomas Frank (Le Monde diplomatique - English edition, August 2020)
    https://mondediplo.com/2020/08/02populism-expertise

    The politics have been inverted but the fight remains the same. Expertise, identified now with the icy moral purity of the left rather than the Neanderthal anticommunism of the right, continues to rage against the insolence of those who defy its authority. The privilege of the expert is the real contested matter.

    Put aside the self-serving fantasies of our modern punditburo, however, and the old political equation can still be seen through the fog of liberal self-righteousness. Squint and you can see that it is the forthrightly populist Senator Bernie Sanders who is most closely identified with universal healthcare these days. And it is the forces of organised expertise and private power that have repeatedly torpedoed it. In our awful current situation, a dose of authentic populism would be a remarkable tonic.